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The Puntland Ministry of Finance announced this week that the federal state will begin distributing the new Somali Shilling to local markets. This comes on the heel of state demands that accounting only be done using the Somali Shilling, amidst the popularity of the American dollar in local markets.

In the port city of Bosaso, the third-largest in Somalia and the commercial capital of Puntland, the Somali Shilling is at its greatest strength in a decade, exchanging now at 19,000 to the dollar. The aim of the Puntland administration is to foster the growing strength of the Somali Shilling by reintroducing it to local markets and keeping a steady supply of local currency for trade. At the moment, there is a near-absence of the Somali Shilling in Bosaso’s markets.

The state-run Bank of Puntland is not tasked with managing currencies, its only role will be to produce and distribute the currency to the public in order to keep its activity afloat. The new currency, to be introduced soon, will replace the weak former currency that was minted by the current Speaker of Parliament Sharif Sheikh Hassan in 2009 in Sudan. The old currency fell and created opposition across the region.

The new Somali Shilling is the product of the recently-reopened Central Bank of Somalia and was agreed upon by both Puntland and the Transitional Federal Government. It will be vastly different from the old currency and will come in bills of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000, and is expected to bring about a historic change in local economies. Systems are being put in place to protect and develop this currency and avoid the mistakes of years previous.

Hirsi Fiqi, Editor

DissidentNation.com